Monthly Archives: October 2015

For some reason, this is another jump being typed up from my logbook on 1st march 2016, yep, things have been that slow.

Another jump from the small and fast finist plane, and man does thing fly up to the jumping height fast. 12,000 feet and the red light comes on and the door slides open. Once its my turn to go, i put one foot on the step, and sort of dive out but turning onto my back at the same time, to watch the plane, before turning back over, into a track and slight head down position, before leveling out and deploying my main canopy at 3500 feet. Coming into the landing pattern there was quite a few canopies around, so i aborted my intended landing spot and landed around 200 yards to the right to ensure i kept away from lower canopies

For some reason, this is being typed up from my logbook on 1st march 2016, yep, things have been that slow.

Anyway, it was a 2 way jump, linked exit with fae, we nearly flipped it right over, but managed to recover it awesomely from a near total inverted disaster. Once we released, because i have roughly the same freefall speed as a rizla, i was a bit high. fae opened up like an octopus at full stretch, i tried my best to dive down to him, but it wasnt going to work, and he vanished towards the planet. at 5000 feet i ensured i still tracked away from him, and deployed my main canopy at 3500 feet, for a pretty uneventfull ride where i landed short of my intended target

This is my first jump at swansea in over a month as they have been having problems with the plane, and, they have borrowed a plane, its smaller than the usual one, will hold 9 people, and is called a Finist. I get myself manifested, and the plane consists of one large group, and myself jumping solo. This small plane has struts under the wings, right outside the door, and ive seen pictures of people hanging off these.

I see the pilot by the plane, and, hes putting on a rig. Ive never seen this happen before, and have wondered a few times about what the pilot would actually do if there was an ‘incident’ this pilot already has it planned. I start talking to him, and explain that ill be jumping solo, and last, and would i be allowed to try and hang off the wing strut. He says sure, i can even try and climb all the way along it if i like, so, on the way to altitude, im thinking about how hard its going to be to hold on.

We get to 12,500 feet, the red light comes on and the door is opened, the green light soon follows and everyone except me is gone within 5 seconds. I get one foot out onto the step, hold onto the strut, and step away from the door, im blown backwards but holding on, the pilot is looking at me through the side window, i hold on for about 5 seconds, before letting go and floating on my back watching the plane. After a few seconds, the plane banks hard left, and goes into a nose dive, ive never seen this happen before either whilst ive been in freefall (ive seen it from the ground) and it looks awesome. the plane actually passes me, so i flip onto my front watch watch it go for a few more seconds. I then turn and track, before putting one arm out in front of me (a la superman lol) and slightly put one hand out to also do a few barrel rolls, laughing like a maniac to myself

I deployed my canopy at 4000 feet, and made my way to the landing area, where i landed bang on target 🙂

Over the last 2 days, ive got the blog completely up to date. Ive updated over 20 jumps (dating back to june :/), updated the Logbook page, updated the beer fine page, and updated and revamped the costs page to make it a lot easier to follow. A lot of the updates on the costs page also help me to keep things up to date, theres now some voodoo internet coding magic that automatically does the sums, and spits out the totals. All i have to do is enter the number of jumps, or what ive spent money on. Its taken a few weeks to ensure the coding works properly, and its finally live.

The next updates will be to the videos and pictures sections as soon as i transfer some stuff to youtube etc

After spending the night in a sleeping back in the back of the van, and getting up at 5am, im ready to go by 8:30, but, theres fog, which doesnt clear untill midday, leaving me an hour before i have to leave. Luckily ive been manifested for lift 1 since 9am, so by half past 12, im in the air, and in the door at 13,700′

A 5 way group has left before me, and im aware that they will be tracking away from each other, so i keep my eye on them, and when they split, i see one heading roughly towards where i will be in 5 seconds time, to i turn and track, away from him, and away from the flight line, as i dont want to be tracking into anyone else, before opening my main at ~ 3,500′. This time i land about 3M to the right of the target, but im still happy with that 🙂

After driving to devon to collect a new van, i couldnt resist taking my gear, and a tent and sleeping back, and stopping at Dunkeswell on the way back. Upon arriving and going through gear checks, someone said i had missed the last load of the day, but, i had about 10 minutes to get ready, Awesome 🙂

The planes here climb fast, really fast, so less than 20 minutes later, im in the door at 13,800′, and roll out and flip onto my back to see the plane. I flip back over and simply enjoy the sunset views, at 120mph freefalling, before deploying my main canopy at ~3,500′ and taking up a landing pattern. They have a nice big 20M circle cut onto the grass as a target, and, i land within stepping distance short of it, but, im close enough to be happy with the landing 🙂